Today, tens of thousands of software companies in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) are building their solutions on the cloud, with executives frequently asking how they can accelerate their cloud business. There are seven common habits among successful business-to-business (B2B) software companies.
Constantly improve
In software, popular databases used to be built for general usage, by default, but are now cloud-native and purpose built for specific use cases. These technology disruptions required people taking advantage of new inventions and positioning their company as a leader in this new environment. They provide opportunities to you as a business leader, as well as your competitors, to newcomers and to market leaders, to give customers new and better choices.
There are business and technical experts inside the major cloud service providers whose job is to help you to take advantage of the latest cloud developments and establish your own innovation. Then as you market and sell your software, customers, collaborate with sellers, and scale processes. Online marketplaces enable co-selling through automation. This is all about continuously improving your go-to-market tactics.
Invest in your people
As Richard Branson said, “Train people well enough so they can leave; treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”
A 2021 study by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) demonstrates that investing in training and certifications provides a strong benefit to businesses. Over 90% of our partners support this finding, sharing that when their employees participate in AWS training and earn certifications, their companies are more competitive and successful in the following 3–5 years.
Investing in training and talent brings new skills to a company, and it elevates the internal mindset surrounding new technological implementations. For example, when migrating to the cloud from on-premises data centres, companies must shift their mindset to consider how to best support the business from both a technological and management aspect. They often ask themselves high-stakes questions such as, “How can we transition from perpetual licensing to a subscription pricing model? How do we plan and complete a migration to the cloud? What are sound practices in Software-as-a-Service application development?” Having talents in your organisation who are up-to-date on skills provides the foundation.
Go all-in
As customers, software companies benefit from economies of scale given by big cloud providers, and as partners, they can also pass those benefits along to their customers. Multiple cloud platforms exist in the market, providing choice. By investing in people, including technical teams and operations, companies can use one cloud provider to implement an effective strategy across their infrastructures: building, releasing the software, then iterating, keeping it secure. Once your business becomes good at it, you can leverage this AWS expertise for every technology you build, for your internal use or for your customers.
It is similar for partnerships. Partners can achieve great success by running a significant part of their sales through popular digital catalogues. Doing this creates co-sell relationships between AWS and the software company’s sales organisation. It can also increase a company’s visibility across large online marketplaces for business technology.
Use culture and incentives to drive your intended outcomes
Culture, incentives and goals are intertwined. For example, innovation involves trial and error, which requires people to feel comfortable with experimenting. A culture of encouraging employees to try new things often leads to many innovations. For example, the concept of two-way doors, where if a decision can be easily changed, it’s a two-way door. This makes the risk more limited than a hard-to-reverse decision, which is a one-way door. By creating an experiential culture, companies can create incentives for leaders to experiment, learn, and adapt, often resulting in more innovation and growth.
Train people well enough so they can leave; treat them well enough so they don’t want to.
Another example comes from Sales, where an important incentive is how a software company compensates its sales organisation. In the context of co-selling with a cloud provider, the top partners create a compensation-neutral structure for their sellers, whether a customer purchases their software on the AWS Marketplace or directly from them. Doing so means your sales team’s sole incentive will be doing what’s right for your customers.
Identify important details which matter to your customers
Companies that get into the detail of their customers’ perspective reap big rewards. For example, someone once asked MySQL founder Monty Widenius why his software became so popular. “One reason is good product documentation”, he responded. How did he know the documentation would be so important? As the inventor of the software, Monty personally handled some of the technical support issues, and realised that many could be addressed upfront with a detailed user manual. His insights came from direct experience. The MySQL product documentation was well organised, comprehensive, and a scalable way to teach users how to accomplish their data goals. MySQL insisted on high standards and it earned the trust of millions of users.
Pursue operational excellence and automation
Use software and automation to improve your customers’ productivity, and also your own internal processes. With the growing capabilities of technology, you can invest more in people by removing tasks which take their time, and which could be freed up to create more value. Some independent software vendors do it exceptionally well.
Automate and scale where it makes sense, for your customers and for your internal processes. After all, isn’t the creation of software, the core of your business, about taking advantage of automation and scaling?
Take a long view and keep it fun
Recognise your top performers, those who go above and beyond. In career and in life it’s hard not to notice the positive impact of saying thank you, of highlighting great work, within communities and circles. Recognise the great work our partner community is doing, for example partner awards. Then in a few years we pass the baton to the next generation of professionals, what will we remember? We’ll remember building the business, the fun times we had getting together as a team, the working and personal relationships we built with our customers, partners and colleagues. These are memories we’ll keep of all this.
For more information visit aws.amazon.com/partners
